Virginia Creighton studied at the Albany Institute of History and Art, the Fontainebleau School of Music and Art (won first prize in painting at age 16), the Whitney Independent Study Program, (was invited to stay an extra semester), and Bennington College, where her major was art. She moved to New York and co-founded NOHO Gallery.

At NOHO Gallery, her work was exhibited in solo and group shows. Other solo shows where her work was exhibited include those at the Guggenheim Gallery of the Rensselaerville Institute in Rensselaerville, New York; the Philo Art Gallery in Albany; the John Davis Gallery in Akron, Ohio, and Marden Fine Arts in New York City. Select group shows include The New Response: Contemporary Painters of the Hudson River, curated by Thomas Nelson and with a catalogue by Nelson and John Yau.

For several years the artist was represented by Peter Tatistcheff. Maureen Mallarkey reviewed her 2004 show at Tatistcheff Gallery in The New York Sun. The Autumn 2004 issue of The Gettysburg Review features this show and contains Molly Hutton’s commentary on the artist’s work. Work was included in a show at Gettysburg College in 2007.

The artist won grants to attend residencies in 1987 (Millay), in 2005 (Virginia Center for the Creative Arts), in 2006 (The Vermont Studio Center), and in 2007 (Ragdale Foundation). A 2009 solo show at Moravian College displayed on her contemporary landscapes of the Hudson River and the Bethlehem Steel Mill on the Lehigh River.

From 2009 to 2010, she curated the traveling exhibit Different at Every Turn: Contemporary Painters of the Hudson River, commemorating Henry Hudson’s 1609 river navigation. In March 2010 she had a solo show at Suffolk County Community College. In 2011 she curated From the Page’s Edge: Water in Literature and Art, which toured the Northeast. In 2012, she curated Navigator: Paintings by Joe Overstreet at Hutchins Gallery at LIU Post. Also in 2012, she organized The Countryside in Art and Southern Literature which traveled to the Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

In March 2013, the artist had a solo show curated by Peter Malone at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York. In June 2013, the artist attended an Appalachian foothills retreat focused on creating art at the Hope Springs Institute in Peebles, Ohio. In 2014, she curated The Transverse, a group show on transportation at Port Authority in New York City. She organized a group show on the canal system, Life on the Canal Then by Artists Now.